One woman, three children, a husband & an unreasonably angry cat. **Now with added puppy!**

The So-Called “Benefits” of Pet Ownership

Here’s my confession: the joys and benefits of Pet Ownership are somewhat eluding me right now.

Let’s put it this way: if you were to get all the Happy Pet Owners of Australia and gather them together in the Melbourne Cricket Ground, I would not come along to your little pet-lovin’ shindig. So don’t bother inviting me, okay? Look, don’t even talk to me about it. Sheesh.

And before you judge me too harshly, let’s just say that Genghis Cat (resident pet) represents just another member of this household who:

a) follows me around the house, hassling me to give him food;

b) turns his nose up at whatever food I give him;

c) wants to sleep in my bed;

d) wakes me up by crying loudly when I won’t let him sleep in my bed; and when I do let him sleep in my bed…

e) keeps me awake by biting my toes (admittedly the kids do it by jabbing my kidneys with those pointy toes of theirs)

f) unexpectedly shits, pisses and vomits in equally unexpected places around the house; and

g) gives me worms.

To add insult to injury, the cat makes a point of sitting right in front of me and licking his anus for, like, 20 minutes while I’m trying to eat my chocolate brownie and then leaping over and running his tongue across said brownie the minute I leave it unattended. At least the kids don’t do that – if only because it’s physically impossible for them to lick their anuses.

Experts say: pets make good friends.

I say: even my worst enemies haven’t thrown up on my bed.

Experts say: pet ownership has many health benefits.

I say: as long as I don’t eat that brownie.

Experts say: pets are good for stress-relief.

I say: as long as they don’t create more stress than they relieve. But then again, I sure feel much better after shouting “STUPID CAT!” at the cat. And it certainly feels way more comfortable than shouting “STUPID KIDS!” at the kids. Plus I can lock the cat outside when he’s really pissing me off. Or I can even lock him outside when the kids are really pissing me off. I mean, better the cat, right?

Shit, no wonder he’s so unreasonably angry. And I can’t even blame the cat for that one. Which makes me unreasonably angry.

23 Responses

We have a stupid cat, too. It whines outside to be let in and then as soon as it is in, it wants out. It too has an “anus licking” fetish and chooses to do so at the most inopportune times in the most inopportune company. It throws up everywhere and shit in the BABY’S BED (are you KIDDING ME?!).

So – we are currently prepared to hand this bundle of joy over to the first person ready to take it.

Pugs are worse. At least the pugs we breifly owned before they went to puggy heaven were worse. They eat chocolate in the wrapper, can’t fgure out not to shit inside or at least not pee on the baby stuff, need to be complete control, have a fetish for my used underwear, willing knock over the dirty hamper to get to said underwear, piss on my side of the bed when angry at me. Yup. Next animal is outdoor for sure.

Yes, very unreasonably angry. They die a lot. Well, each one only dies once, but then you get another one and it dies, and then you get another one…you get my point. This is particularly problematic when you are house-sitting for friends who have a BIG tank full of those fat, ugly googly eyed goldfish and then you go away for only ONE WEEK and the filter chooses that week to die and accordingly all the goldfish also choose that week to die and when you get home the house STINKS of dead, googly eyed goldfish. I feel so much better now that I’ve got that off my chest.

The pet aspect of my house makes no sense, even to me. I hate cats. HATE. I’m allergic to them, they serve no obvious purpose, they’re ugly…and yet, we have two of them.

We also have two dogs, which are AWESOME. My husband cannot understand this, and continues to point out the fact that they smell, they’re loud, they poop in inconvenient places. Never mind the fact that they’re ADORABLE, sweet, smart and kill rats for sport. Unlike his freakin’ cats, which have only been seen killing time. Lazy bastards.

A middle-aged Japanese man once said to me “In this world, there is spider-man and there is not-spider-man.”

Rather than saying that there is only one true super hero and the rest of us are punks (as I first thought), he was saying there are people who like spiders and people who don’t.

Does the same apply to cats? I’m an ambivalent cat owner. I appreciate my cat – from a distance (particularly when he is engaged in the act of arse-licking.). Sure, we’re one of the only houses in this area untouched by the current mouse plague. I have him to thank for that. However, I am not the kind of person who is about to start emailing cute pictures of cats to all my friends.

Chickens? I’ve heard that they are truly therapeutic pets to own, particularly when served with roast potatoes and crisp steamed broccoli.

We too have an inconvenient cat. According to vet, she is a XXY girl because she is ginger and the ginger gene is only located on the Y chromosome. She pisses like a tom, she fights like a tom and she rules our row of terraces by terror and piss. She even drove away a flatmate she didnt like by repeatedly sneaking into his room and pissing over his bed, pillows and curtains. She especially liked doing this while he was in situ. Her favourite thing to do, now that that flatmate is long gone, is to lie in wait in our tiny front yard and fight passing dogs through the iron fence. There are a couple of people who will now only walk their dogs on the opposite side of the road to us.

My parents have a cat that loves to scratch his bum along the carpet. You know, where they sit down, lift their back legs infront of them and then drag themselves along on their front legs, thus scratching that delicate area beneath their tail?

He does it when they have guests over and it’s quite disturbing. Mum has taken him to the vets a few times thinking he might have had worms or something… but the vet has come to the conclusion he just enjoys a good arse scratching.

When I ring the cattery to book our beloved pet cat in there is a sudden chill on the other end of the phone – he’s got form there it seems. Last time we went to collect him he had been in a seperate wing all by himself – “lockdown in solitary” I think someone said.

He is fondly known by all visitors to our home as “that psycho” – as in “yeah we’ll come over on Wednesday afternoon, that psycho won’t be there will he?”

He is so mean it’s probaby his name right there in the dictionary to define the word. Genghis and he would probably get on very well… and could help the NDM husband set up his Ninja troupe (if they didn’t slash his head off first).

Hannah has allowed me to ammend my Shaw Family Rules in order to take our pain in the ass dog into consideration (my words not hers).
– The words “shut up” ate not allowed unless shouted at the dog.
– we are not allowed to call anyone except the dog stupid an idiot
– we cannot be rude unless we are talking to the dog

Cat allergy and intense aversion to anything that kills birds for sport means that a cat is not an option in our house.
I grew up with an extraordinary dog, but realise that she was an exception to most dogs who seem to lack her virtues – (tolerant with children dressing her, not fixated on stick retrieving, small enough to not need a walk every day, but large enough to cope with long country walks without having to be carried, so healthy the vet never saw her at all, woofy enough with strangers to keep the house safe but so wimpy she wouldn’t actually confront another creature). No dog can top her reputation so we’re not going to go there either!
I have found that small birds have been good indoor pets for me and the kids – reward any attention you give them, but will not die if you ignore them once feed & watered.
Both canaries & budgies call out a greeting when you come home & add a companionable background chirping to family or solitary life. Best kept in a decent sized cage in 2-3s. Even easy to have looked after when on holiday – many families like having a visit from some birds for a while & they’re very transportable.

I’m just SOOO annoyed with most people in this forum. Our pets are the only things that give us absolute unconditional love and here’s a group of unworthy pet owners slagging them off as if they were the Devil himself. How could you do this, if you don’t think highly and lovingly about your pets then you shouldent own them.

I was having a much needed vent about my pet, who shows me little love despite the care and attention I give him. I would never be intentionally cruel or neglectful but at the end of the day, he’s a cat in a household with three kids and a severely neglected husband. He’s gonna be at the bottom of the pecking order, I’m afraid.

My cat is/was feral and as such is basically a wild animal. I feed him and give him very comfortable places to sleep and chillout, however he isn’t particularly cuddly or apparently thankful in return because he isn’t really a domesticated pet. His ‘psychotic’ behaviour is therefore pretty normal to him and I’m okay with that. He can come and go as he pleases but so far he has always chosen to stay with us.
So don’t worry Han, I don’t own my cat, if anything it’s the other way round.

Cute, cuddly & pettable they may be, but most creatures we “own” are food-motivated. The love is conditional really – don’t feed the cat and he will find some person who will feed him & move in to the new household. I have friends who succumbed to the plaintive mews of some cat who just turned up looking hopeful, and guess what – now they “own” a cat!

We have been waiting for 17 years for our cat to die. Not really. But those two times we dropped multiple hundreds of dollars to save him from life-threatening infections? Lately, I regret those decisions. Now he appears to be ailing again. But, at his advanced age, it’d be pure foolishness to start him on daily medications and frequent visits to the vet, which traumatize me even more than they do the cat. And not just because of the money.

I know I’m late with this one, but just to warn you all … Don’t be saying to people you don’t know that well (like in a crowded office of “people” (I amended that one several times) with shed-loads of child substitutes shitting at home) that you can’t get behind the current trend for pet insurance cos you thought the only point of owning a domestic pet was to teach children about death. It’s bad on so many levels….

I love pets. I don’t like their poo or their wee or their vomit. Much the same with kids really. Does that make me bad? I can love my child to the death but still dry reach cleaning up their bodily fluids, same with pets.